Fluid-S pivot in Old Albic

Hallo!

I briefly mentioned yesterday that Old Albic has a fluid-S pivot.
What does that mean?  "Pivot" refers to a language's rule about
what NP in the preceding clause a gap in a sentence like
"The boy threw the ball and fell" is coreferential with.
In English, this sentence means "The boy threw the ball and
[the boy] fell".  This is a "nominative pivot".  Dyirbal,
an Australian aboriginal language, has an "absolutive pivot"
(also called an "ergative pivot").  In Dyirbal, the example
sentence would mean "The boy threw the ball and [the ball] fell".

(I hope I have understood correctly what a pivot is.)

Now, in Old Albic, the pivot is fluid-S, i. e. it depends on
whether the verb is active or stative.  The sentence above would
be interpreted as in Dyirbal because the verb "to fall" is stative.
The sentence "The boy threw the ball and ran", however, would be
interpreted as in English because "to run" is active.  Got it?
But that's not all.  There are "fluid" verbs, such as "to come",
which can be both.  Fortunately, whether it is active or stative
can be told by the agreement markers it takes.  Examples:

(1) Agratara              ndero   gratath    a   acvamsa.
    AOR-write-3SG:P-3SG:A man-AGT letter-OBJ and AOR-come-3SG:A
    `A man wrote a letter and [the man] came.'

Here, _acvamsa_ is active, as can be seen by the presence of an
agent marker on it.  Hence, the gap in the second clause is
coreferential with the agent in the first clause.

(2) Agratara              ndero   gratath    a   acvama.
    AOR-write-3SG:P-3SG:A man-AGT letter-OBJ and AOR-come-3SG:P
    `A man wrote a letter and [the letter] came.'

Here, _acvama_ is stative, as can be seen by the presence of a
patient marker on it.  Hence, the gap in the second clause is
coreferential with the patient in the first clause.

This can be taken even further.  If the second verb is transitive,
there can be _two_ gaps coreferential with the two arguments of the
first verb:

(3) Agratara              ndero   gratath    a   aracara.
    AOR-write-3SG:P-3SG:A man-AGT letter-OBJ and AOR-rip-3SG:P-3SG:A
    `A man wrote a letter and [the man] ripped [the letter].'

To make things more complex, there are also switch-reference
pronouns.  The agentive case of the switch-reference pronoun,
_ra_, is coreferential to a patient in the preceding clause,
while its objective case, _ram_, is coreferential to an agent.
Example:

(4) Eterara                 ndero   chvanam a   ovophsa        ra.
    AOR-look.at-3SG:P-3SG:A man-AGT dog-OBJ and AOR-bark-3SG:A SR-AGT
    `A man looked at a dog and [the dog] barked.'

(5) Eterara                 ndero   chvanam a   asata         ram.
    AOR-look.at-3SG:P-3SG:A man-AGT dog-OBJ and AOR-sit-3SG:P SR-OBJ
    `A man looked at a dog and [the man] sat.'

Without the SR pronouns, these sentenced would mean `A man looked
at a god and [the man] barked' and `A man looked at a god and
[the dog] sat'.  With two SR pronouns, the arguments can be
exchanged for each other in the second clause:

(6) Eterara                 ndero   chvanam a   ahatara
    AOR-look.at-3SG:P-3SG:A man-AGT dog-OBJ and AOR-bite-3SG:P-3SG:A
    ra     ram.
    SR-AGT SR-OBJ

    `A man looked at a dog and [the god] bit [the man].'

This device is sometimes used in poetry in long strings of reciprocal
action (such as a battle between a hero and a villain), where only
the first clause has explicit verb arguments and the following ones
have switch-reference pronouns instead.  This is called "braiding".

Greetings,

Jörg.

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